In this tutorial you will learn how to install ViSP from source on Linux Ubuntu. These steps have been tested with Ubuntu 17.04 (64 bit) distribution, but should work with any other distribution as well.

libxml2 to be able to configure the model-based trackers from xml files

$ sudo apt-get install libxml2-dev

QR code detection

$ sudo apt-get install libzbar-dev

pthread library

$ sudo apt-get install libpthread-stubs0-dev

Other optional 3rd parties

We give also the way to install other 3rd party libraries to enable specific capabilities.

If you have an Intel Realsense RGB-D camera (R200, F200, SR300, LR200, RZ300) you may install librealsense 1.12.1 following these installation instructions. Additionnally you may also install PCL library using:

$ sudo apt-get install libpcl-dev

If you have a Point Grey camera you may donwload and install Flycapture SDK following these instructions.

If you have a Basler camera you may donwload and install Pylon SDK following these instructions.

Coin, to be able to support vrml cad model used by the model-based trackers

$ sudo apt-get install libcoin80-dev

libjpeg and libpng to support jpeg and png images respectively (only useful if OpenCV is not installed)

$ sudo apt-get install libjpeg-dev libpng-dev

Ogre 3D if you want to do augmented reality or simulation

$ sudo apt-get install libogre-1.9-dev libois-dev

Datamatrix code detection

$ sudo apt-get install libdmtx-dev

Install ViSP from source code

Create a workspace

First create a workspace in $HOME/visp-ws that will contain ViSP source, build and dataset.

$ export VISP_WS=$HOME/visp-ws

$ mkdir -p $VISP_WS

Getting ViSP source code

There are different ways to get ViSP source code:

You can download the latest release as a zip or a tarball. Once downloaded, uncompress the file using either

$ tar xvzf visp-x.y.z.tar.gz -C $VISP_WS

or

$ unzip visp-x.y.z.zip -d $VISP_WS

You can also download a daily snapshot. Once downloaded, uncompress the file using

We suppose now that ViSP source is in the directory $VISP_WS/visp. The following should be adapted if you downloaded ViSP from a zip or tarball. In that case, the source is rather in something like $VISP_WS/visp-x.y.z.

Configuring ViSP from source

In the worspace, create first a directory named visp-build that will contain all the build material; generated Makefiles, object files, output libraries and binaries.

$ mkdir $VISP_WS/visp-build

Enter the visp-build folder and configure the build:

$ cd $VISP_WS/visp-build

$ cmake ../visp

A more versatile way to configure the build is to use ccmake, the CMake GUI:

$ ccmake ../visp

The following image shows that this command allows to configure (just by pressing [c] key) the build in a more advanced way where some options could be easily turned ON/OFF. It allows also to see which are the 3rd parties that will be used. To generate the makefiles, just press [g] key in the ccmake gui.

Snapshot of the ccmake ../visp command used to configure ViSP.

Building ViSP libraries

To build ViSP libraries proceed with:

$ cd $VISP_WS/visp-build

$ make -j4

Note

Installing ViSP is optional, since ViSP could be used as a 3rd party without installation. To proceed with the installation run:

$ cd $VISP_WS/visp-build

$ sudo make install

The default install location is set to /usr/local. This location could be changed modifying CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX var:

$ cd $VISP_WS/visp-build

$ cmake ../visp -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr

$ sudo make install

Building ViSP documentation

To build ViSP documentation, you have first to install Doxygen package:

$ sudo apt-get install doxygen graphviz texlive-latex-base

Then you can proceed with:

$ cd $VISP_WS/visp-build

$ cmake ../visp

$ make -j4 visp_doc

The generated documentation is then available in $VISP_WS/visp-build/doc/html/index.html

It is also possible to generate a more complete documentation that includes also all the internal classes. This could be achieved setting CMake var ENABLE_FULL_DOC to ON like:

$ cmake ../visp -DENABLE_FULL_DOC=ON

$ make -j4 visp_doc

Install ViSP dataset

Some ViSP examples and tests require data (images, video, models) that are not part of ViSP source code but available in a separate archive named ViSP-images-x.y.z.zip. This archive could be downloaded from http://visp.inria.fr/download page. We provide here after the way to install these data if you want to run ViSP examples.

$ unzip ViSP-images-3.1.0.zip -d $VISP_WS

We suppose now that the data are located in $VISP_WS/ViSP-images-3.1.0.

$ ls $VISP_WS/ViSP-images-3.1.0

AprilTag circle ellipse iv LICENSE.txt mbt mire-2 video

calibration cube ellipse-1 Klimt line mire README.md

Set VISP_INPUT_IMAGE_PATH environment variable to help ViSP examples and tests to find the location of the data set. It is more convenient if this environment variables is automatically added to your bash session every time a new shell is launched:

From now, you can try to run ViSP examples and tests. For example you can run displayX example that should open a windows with Klimt painting image and some overlay drawings:

$ cd $VISP_WS/visp-build

$ ./example/device/display/displayX

A click to close the windows...

A click to display a cross...

Cross position: 201, 441

A click to exit the program...

Bye

Tips and tricks

How to uninstall ViSP

After ViSP installation, you can remove installed material using:

$ cd $VISP_WS/visp-build

$ sudo make uninstall

How to build only ViSP libraries

If you want to build only ViSP modules libraries, nor the examples, tutorials and tests:

$ cd $VISP_WS/visp-build

$ make -j4 visp_modules

How to build a ViSP specific module

If you want to build a given module and all the dependencies:

$ cd $VISP_WS/visp-build

$ make -j4 visp_<module_name>

For example to build the model-based tracker module named mbt, run:

$ cd $VISP_WS/visp-build

$ make -j4 visp_mbt

Which are the targets that could be run with make ?

To know which are the target available with make:

$ make help | grep visp

... visp_tests

... visp_modules

... visp_examples

... visp_demos

... visp_tutorials

... visp_clipper

... visp_apriltag

... visp_core

... visp_gui

... visp_io

... visp_klt

... visp_me

... visp_sensor

... visp_ar

... visp_blob

... visp_robot

... visp_visual_features

... visp_vs

... visp_vision

... visp_detection

... visp_mbt

... visp_tt

... visp_tt_mi

Which are the 3rd party libraries that are used in ViSP ?

To see which are the optional 3rd parties that are found during the configuration stage and that will be used by ViSP during the build you can have a look to the text file named ViSP-third-party.txt and located in $VISP_WS/visp-build. We provide hereafter an example of a possible content of this file that contains also build info.